


Death Watch

by Frayach



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1251511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frayach/pseuds/Frayach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <img/>
</p><p> </p><p>Michael Ross, an honors student at Cornell, before he became a serial killer (at least as far as we know).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Watch

**Author's Note:**

> I was a law clerk for the judge who tried to delay the execution of Michael Ross on the grounds that the Death Penalty is cruel & unusual punishment. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld his determination, but at the very last minute (literally) the U.S. Supreme Court reversed. We watched the clock. At eleven o'clock p.m., Ross became the first - and the last - inmate Connecticut would execute since the the Supreme Court reversed its 8th Amendment ruling back in 1973 in Furman v. Georgia. Without going into the politics of the death penalty, it is a humbling experience watching a clock and knowing that when the hands reach a certain position that a person is being killed. I will never forget the experience.

**Death Watch**

After days  
of rain, the leaves  
have come out at last.  
But it may as well be February  
again. The news trucks  
broadcast from the courthouse steps.  
Anchormen ask a man  
in untied work boots, a woman  
pushing a baby stroller,  
do they think they’ll execute him  
this time?  
The all-but unanimous verdict:  
they’d better, damn it. The monster  
strangled eight women and later  
complained how difficult it’d been  
to crush their windpipes. _It’s harder_  
than you’d think, he chattily  
told the cops, _to choke a person to death._  
State officials,  
for the sake of discretion,  
have announced that they will not report  
the prisoner’s request for his  
last meal. The Oklahoma City bomber  
asked for three pints of mint chocolate-chip  
ice cream. The people  
of Connecticut are annoyed  
that they will be deprived  
of their own bit of trivia.

The rain will return tomorrow.  
We’ve only had a brief  
reprieve. The weather, after all,  
comes and goes despite our pleas  
to heaven and the best efforts of  
heroes and knaves.

 

 _For RNC and PAG_  
May 12, 2005


End file.
